Almanac

June 11

1864 Richard Strauss – German composer and conductor (d.1949); a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, known for his operas such as Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Wagner.

1899 George Frederick McKay – American composer (d.1970); founded the Composition Department at the University of Washington, where he was a professor of music for more than 40 years.

1926 Carlisle Floyd – American composer (92 years old); his best known opera, Susannah (1955), is based on a story from the Apocrypha transferred to rural Tennessee; helped create a distinctively American idiom for opera using national folk and religious idioms; based many of his operas in the American South.

1960 premiere of Benjamin Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night's Dream in Aldeburgh at the Jubilee Hall.

1970 first performance of And God Created Great Whales by Alan Hovhaness, scored for taped song of humpback whales and orchestra, at a New York Philharmonic Promenade concert conducted by André Kostelanetz.

1987 premiere of Michael Torke’s ballet Purple at the New York State Theater, by the New York City Ballet Orchestra, Lukas Foss conducting.

Recording of the Week

No Recording of the Week

Program Guide

00:00FROM THE TOP with Christopher O’Riley and America's finest young musicians; recorded February 13, 2016 -From San Jose, California, this week’s From the Top is an all-Californian show featuring young musicians exclusively from The Golden State. A multi-competition-winning choir from Northern California performs a traditional spiritual; a 16-year-old pianist performs a powerfully evocative piece by a Turkish composer; and we meet a teenage guitarist from San Francisco who, with very little resources, began in music by teaching himself through YouTube videos and has since emerged to become a very original composer

03:00 THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC THIS WEEK with Alec Baldwin: Alan Gilbert, conductor; Inon Barnatan, piano

Esa-Pekka Salonen: Nyx

Maurice Ravel: Piano Concerto in G

Claude Debussy: Jeux

Richard Strauss: Rosenkavalier Suite

05:00MILLENNIUM OF MUSIC with Robert Aubry Davis: Monteverdi and His Circle IV - I Fagiolini (and the English Cornett & Sackbutt Ensemble) mark the ongoing celebrations of the 450th anniversary of the birth of the great Italian with a reconstructed Vespers from the composer’s later years.
05:58:00 00:01:59 Gregorian Chant O gloriosa domina Anonymous 4 Harm Mundi 2907546

22:00 CITY CLUB FORUM – recorded Friday at The City Club of Cleveland, a citadel of free speech, 2017 State of the Great Lakes - Dan Egan, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Reporter; Author, The Death and Life of the Great Lakes; the original version of Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax included the line "I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie.” This was in reference to the 1960s declaration that Lake Erie was “dead.” The lake was not, in fact, dead but rather just full of toxic algae that killed off native aquatic species. The Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss to tell him about the efforts to clean up the lake and Seuss, in turn, removed the line. This is just one of many stories surrounding the often-mysterious Great Lakes, which cover almost 100,000 square miles and contain 84 percent of the U.S.’s surface fresh water. Despite their relative size and importance, the Great Lakes face a myriad of challenges such as over-application of fertilizer, fluctuation in water levels, and invasive species brought in from the freighters that haul upwards of 125 million tons of cargo up the St. Lawrence Seaway every year. What new Great Lakes stories are being created right now that will make it into the history books?